Massively multiplayer online (“MMO”) games enjoy tremendous popularity, with some games numbering players in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Movement and physical interactions of virtual objects in simulations such as MMOs are controlled by rules set out by the developer. One way to increase the realism of such movement and interactions, and thus to increase player immersion, is to employ a physics simulator or engine, which controls the motion of predefined physics objects according to predetermined (though alterable) physical laws.
Physics engines provide an enhanced state of realism. Employing laws in two or three dimensions, such as conservation of energy and momentum, as well as elastic deformation of bodies, physics objects tend to appear to move in much more expected and realistic ways than in prior systems.